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Design Dean

As professor and dean of CCA’s Design division, I have primary responsibility for the vision, leadership, and administration of undergraduate Fashion Design, Furniture, Graphic Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, and Interaction Design programs.

I’m also overseeing a suite of graduate programs -- MFA Design, MBA in Design Strategy, and the forthcoming Master of Interaction Design.

Prior Work

Prior to my director position, I was an associate professor and chair of CCA’s Graduate Program in Design. During my two-year tenure, I led the team that overhauled the program’s curriculum and added a three-year MFA degree.

I hold a BA in Political Science, (Michigan); an MFA in Nonfiction Writing (Iowa); and an MA in English/Antarctic Studies (Canterbury, New Zealand)

Career Arc

After completing my undergraduate political science degree in Michigan, I pursued my passion for photography, joining the staff of Saturday Review magazine, where I rose to photo editor.

I credit those years of photo layouts with teaching me the fundamentals of visual storytelling.

I then joined the Washington Post Writers Group and the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, before reporting the news and shooting photos in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand.

I have spent three months living and working in Antarctica as a photographer and journalist. I was awarded a J. William Fulbright Fellowship in the Arts to create a book about Antarctic exploration. The result of which is the critically acclaimed book, The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica (University of Nebraska Press, 2008, 2012).

In San Francisco I have served as associate director of the Stanford Professional Publishing course; managed the editorial redesign of and then ran a global science magazine; consulted for search engines, transportation firms, cosmetics, and garment companies around product narration; and cowritten books, most recently on design and visual perception for Chronicle Books.

I have written hundreds of essays and articles for publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Sun, Sydney Morning Herald, Tampa Tribune, Forbes, Fourth Genre, The Iowa Review, Ascent, and The Bellevue Literary Review.